


she knows better now

by Luridel



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 04:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3677628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luridel/pseuds/Luridel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Morrigan finds her son and the Inquisitor playing chess in the garden."</p>
            </blockquote>





	she knows better now

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt. "I'd love to see your three-minute fiction stories. 600 words or less, any topic."

Morrigan finds her son and the Inquisitor playing chess in the garden.

Kieran is hunched over the board, eyes sharp and intent, scanning the pieces. Morrigan knows, even before she gets close enough to see the trap he’s created, that he’s going to win. Lady Ariel Trevelyan sits cross-legged on her chair, chewing on her lower lip. Without her armor or her finery, she looks ragged, young; if not for the mark on her hand, she could easily be mistaken for one of the refugees. Her family wanted to send her to the Templars, Morrigan recalls, and oh, what a waste that would have been. She seems utterly at ease with Kieran, another point in her favor.

“He’s relentless,” Ariel says to her advisor. “I made a careless mistake and I’ve been struggling to stay in the game ever since.”

Morrigan meets the woman’s eyes and knows that she’s speaking with absolute sincerity. It would never even have occurred to the Inquisitor to let the child win, Morrigan knows. The Inquisitor competes like she does anything else, it seems: quietly, patiently, and modestly. Of all the individuals to survive the Conclave, she thinks, it could have been much worse.

It’s sentimental of her, but she doesn’t want to disturb the scene. Still, she came out here for a reason. “We were expecting you in the War Room half an hour ago,” she says, and suppresses a smile at the blush spreading across the Inquisitor’s freckled face. Sometimes she forgets just how _young_ the woman is.

“I’m so sorry, I completely lost track of time…” Shaking her head, Ariel moves one of the white stone pieces. “I’ll be right there, we’re nearly done.”

“Checkmate,” Kieran chimes in on cue, sliding a rook across the board. He looks up at the Inquisitor with a half-smirk that makes him look like the perfect miniature of his father. It’s been too long since the three of them have been together as a family, but she knows it’s only a matter of time before he comes to Skyhold. Morrigan’s never been able to stop him from following her, her Warden, and she loves him for that – she can’t help it.

The Inquisitor tips her king over and reaches across the table to shake Kieran’s hand. “Good game. Thank you for the match, Kieran. I feel like I learned a lot.” She looks into the child’s eyes and nods, gravely. Kieran nods back and begins returning the pieces to their starting positions.

Morrigan falls into step beside the Inquisitor, passing through the crumbling stone corridors. Ariel sets a rapid pace, adjusting the scarf around her neck. “Are you happy here?” the Inquisitor asks, and Morrigan, who knows all too well what a natural leader sounds like, sees right through her and falls for it anyway, the way she once did for a man holding a golden mirror. The kindness that Morrigan would have once called weakness, the attentiveness to detail and genuine concern, the simplicity of her desire to make the right choices – they are two of a kind, the Inquisitor and her Warden, and she knows better now than to think less of her for it. The Inquisitor is neither a naïve child nor a manipulative schemer, as Morrigan had originally guessed. Lady Trevelyan is a bulwark for her people and her kindness is one of her strengths.

Morrigan doesn’t answer immediately.

Is she happy? No, not genuinely, not without her Warden. But Morrigan is where she needs to be, and that has more value than happiness.

“I’m fortunate to be here,” she says instead.


End file.
